TENBURG 



UMAN PERSON 





Class 2, _ 

Book. 

Copyright^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



MAN 
A STUDY 



MAN 



A STUDY 



BY 



ALBERT EDWIN CLATTENBURG, B.D. 

Vicar of Christ Church, Christiana Hundred, and 
Immanuel Church, Wilmington, Delaware. 




BOSTON: RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE COPP CLARK CO., LIMITED, TORONTO 



Copyright, 1914, by Richard G. Badger 



All Rights Reserved 



• C<5 



The Gorham Press Boston, U. S. A' 

NOV -7 1914 

©CU387403 



DEDICATION 

To all those saints, 

alive and dead, 

who have opened up 

to me the vision that 

I have of God and man 

this book is humbly dedicated. 



FOREWORD 

ONLY the fact that other men's 
thoughts have helped me to gain a 
better view of the things that per- 
tain unto the real life of man per- 
mits me to send into the world this Book. Noth- 
ing new is sought, only a resetting of truths that 
may be seen by all who seek. It is not primarily 
intended to convert unbelievers to our Lord and 
Saviour, and the life which He revealed; rather 
it is an attempt to stir up the believers sufficient- 
ly so that they will go out and do the converting 
work. Upon those who now know the last com- 
mand of Christ, "Go ye into all the world and 
preach the Gospel to every creature," devolves 
the carrying out of the command. It is with 
the hope that more "who know" may be 
prompted to become one with the group "who 
do" that the writer dares to send forth these 
thoughts. 

Purposely quotations from the Bible have 
been avoided for four reasons: — 

Firstly. That the work may not seem to be 
exegetical or expository. 

Secondly. That "the man in the street" who 
7 



8 FOREWORD 

may also be "a man in the Church" may feel 
that he too has the opportunity to reach the 
conclusions arrived at. If a technical knowl- 
edge of the Holy Scriptures were evident, he 
would feel that he had no part or lot in the 
work. 

Thirdly. That controversy may not be pos- 
sible by reason of the fixing of interpretation to 
any part of God's Word. 

Fourthly. That the writer might not be com- 
pelled to become dogmatic, or to seem to base 
any of his arguments on the traditional sources 
or beliefs of the Christian Church. 

The author recognizes fully that the same 
reasons may be urged as cause for adverse criti- 
cism. He as fully recognizes that a certain 
group of people will imagine this Book to be a 
sanction of the current thought — "A man's con- 
duct is that by which he should be judged; if 
he is what the world calls good, he is all that 
he should be." 

It is necessary, if a man will realize the high- 
est position in this life and in the life to come, 
THAT HE BELIEVE THAT JESUS 
CHRIST IS GOD. For it is granted only to 
such believers to know the highest possible life; 
and only to beings holding this belief is granted 



FOREWORD 9 

the power to make it actual in the world. With 
those who try to minimize "the faith," in order 
to gain converts, the writer would see all men 
embracing the Religion of Christ. The Reli- 
gion of Christ must remain constant, however, 
else those embracing it, and those coming to em- 
brace it, will be found with no lamp burning 
when the Bridegroom comes. 

St. Andrew's Day, 19 13. A. E. C. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Man— How Came he to be Here? 17 

II Man's Possibilities 27 

III Man's Chief Characteristics 37 

IV Man's Gradual Realization of his 

Powers 45 

V Are there Created Beings Superior 

to Man? 55 

VI Man the Final Arbiter of his own 

Actions 63 

VII Man's Obligations 75 

VIII Upon What Does Man's Obliga- 
tion Rest? 85 

IX Man's True Goal ..^ 95 



"Many of Darwin s followers and expounders have 
gone to extreme lengths in their assertions. Not only do 
they assert, with a positiveness of which Darwin was 
never guilty, that species have had a common origin 
through natural causes, but that all organic beings had 
been equally independent of supernatural forces. It is 
a small thing that two species of elephant should have 
descended from a common stock. Nothing will satisfy 
them but to assert that the elephant, the lion, the bear, 
the mouse, the kangaroo, the whale, the shark, the shad, 
birds of every description — indeed, all forms of animal 
life, including the oyster and the snail — have arisen by 
strictly natural processes from some minute speck of 
life, which originated in far distant time." 



MAN— HOW CAME HE TO BE HERE? 



CHAPTER I 

Man — How Came He to be Here? 

THE greatest subject that man can 
study is man himself. He who takes 
up the study of inanimate things may 
have a very attractive and interesting 
work, but sooner or later he will know enough 
about those things to satisfy him. And enough 
to qualify as an expert along those lines. The 
same may be said of those who study living 
things other than man himself. Ornithology, 
Botany, Zoology, or Piscatology, attractive and 
interesting as they are singly or collectively, can 
give man only a larger knowledge of living 
things outside of himself. The study of man 
not only gives man a greater knowledge of 
humanity, but also opens up to him a larger 
vision of the world in which he lives, gives him 
a deeper insight into the life to be led in it, and 
eventuates in a higher personal aim and service. 
All seekers after knowledge that falls short of 
humanity finally come to a place where they are 
satisfied with the results attained. Give a man 
the love of study, and make the object of his 

17 



1 8 MAxX: A STUDY 

study man, and you have started something that 
can end only with the earthly life of the student. 
Man — from whence is he? It is most inter- 
esting to visit a Zoological Garden and find 
there, in the faces, forms, and actions of the 
shut-in fishes, animals, and birds, reminders of 
men whom we have met. It is just as interesting 
to read books that would trace man's pilgrimage 
from the fish life, through the animal life, until 
at last he comes upon the scene as man. We 
can see similarities in the life of man to events 
that transpire in the life of fishes, animals, and 
birds. Does that fact necessarily teach us that 
man ascended from such life? Does it not 
teach us just as surely, and without any stretch 
of our imagination, in order that the decided 
"breaks" in the line may be accounted for, that 
the same Power that caused the fishes, animals, 
and birds to be, caused man also to be? Is there 
not in the evident resemblances an argument for 
the unity of all creation, a unity that demands a 
Unifying Creator? We feel, it must be instinc- 
tively, when we look at creatures that reveal 
characteristics almost human, that man has been 
the product of a Mind, and that Mind, when 
creating man, intended to produce a being that 
would be the head of all created beings and 



MAN— HOW CAME HE TO BE HERE? 19 

things upon earth. Do you suppose that any 
human being, picture the most crude human you 
can imagine, when looking at a baboon would 
think that only the question of time separated 
the looker from the looked-at? In fanciful mo- 
ments, yes ; but not when sane and sober. Such 
an evolution came from an abnormal mind. 
Man, when reasoning from facts known to facts 
unknown, is apt to go the wrong way. Man 
has been led astray by his fancies when trying to 
make present facts account for unknown facts. 
We are at liberty to suppose that man did take 
a wrong step when he anounced the hypothesis 
that man came up through the animal or brute 
world from the world of the jelly-fish. 

No one would dare deny the quite apparent 
fact that the mighty oak comes from the insig- 
nificant acorn. That which is in a thing may 
be produced from that thing. (The magician's 
wonderful hat at one time contained the quantity 
of things that the magician takes from it. That 
these things evolved from the hat itself no one 
seems to claim.) The fact that jelly-fishes are 
not progressing through the animal world into 
the world of humanity to-day seems proof posi- 
tive that man is not, at this time, potentially in 
the jelly-fish. We expect from a seed or egg, by 



20 MAN: A STUDY 

reason of our long experience with seeds and 
eggs, that which is in the seed or egg. We do 
not expect to raise grapes from thorn seeds, nor 
figs from thistle seeds. That which is in each 
seed we expect to evolve from the seed, under 
the proper conditions. Under the hand of man 
anomalous growths may be cultivated. We may 
pluck thistles and figs from the same plant even 
though we may never raise one from the seed of 
the other. We likewise may graft the skin of a 
bear onto a man without changing the life prin- 
ciple of one into that of the other. 

What good is really accomplished by imag- 
ining that the Creator of all rolled up into a 
tight ball the finest part of His creation and 
carefully placed the most insignificant part of 
His creation on the outside, the whole to be un- 
wound only after a long term of years? Is it 
that we may congratulate ourselves on our 
smartness in finding out the Creator's method? 
Will any one deny His ability to do otherwise? 
There seems to be in the human being a distinct 
feeling that there is a Power above the power 
of the biggest and strongest man; and it seems 
to be very generally believed that that Power be- 
longs to the Being who made all that we see. If 
that Being made all that we see, He must have 



MAN— HOW CAME HE TO BE HERE? 21 

had great Power. Did He have power enough to 
make man instantaneously, or must He bring 
life in its lowest form up to a certain standard 
before man could appear? To take up a thought 
that may put this clear : Was the magician com- 
pelled by force of circumstances to take out of 
the hat the great quantity of little things be- 
fore he could bring to your gaze the great big 
thing? You will say no, he had power to do 
the last thing first, if he so willed. Is it there- 
fore sensible for us to imagine a long laborious 
work for the Creator when He could in an in- 
stant of time do it all? 

Of course the Creator could have placed man 
here on the earth just as the evolutionary theory 
says He did. How much simpler it makes the 
matter though, if we believe that the Creator, 
in due time, made man as man. It seems possi- 
ble that the Creator could do either one or the 
other. Both methods demand a Creator with 
great Power. It is possible to say to-day, with- 
out much fear of contradiction, that man is here 
in the world by the will of the Life Giver. This 
cannot be taken away from us no matter how 
learned science may become. Scientists come to 
definite halting places ; it is not given to man no 
matter how intelligent he may become, or how 



22 MAN: A STUDY 

full he may store his mind with what the world 
calls knowledge, to know everything. He who 
made all reserves some things for Himself to 
know, and a truth is reserved for each age and 
time. Man may know from whence he is, for 
he may know the Father of all creation. The 
existence of a Life Giver, from whom all life 
has come, is one of the basal facts of knowledge. 
Man is on the earth because the Life Giver 
willed, and caused, him to be here. The study 
of Comparative Anatomy may lead men to posit 
certain ideas, such for instance as man's gradual 
ascent from the animal world, but the truth of 
that posited statement has not yet been proven. 
Philosophies have tried to solve the problem of 
man's presence in the world, the whence, and 
why, but they have failed in some part. Em- 
bryologists may speculate from known facts 
about animals to unknown facts about man 
without proving that man is a lineal descendant 
of the ape. The study of man, confined to man 
himself, leads one to believe conclusively that 
man was caused to be with all the powers that 
are now his. Life in human form, like life in 
any form, is a gift from the Life Giver. Man 
is here in the world because a Power, above the 
great power of man, willed him to be. 



MAN— HOW CAME HE TO BE HERE? 23 

You will find almost every philosophy known 
to history in the minds of the men with whom 
you associate. You will also find philosophies 
in your contact with men that are not easily la- 
beled; individualistic, caused to be by reason of 
the emphasis that the one holding it has put up- 
on some phase of the world or of life. The 
consensus of opinion among men, however, men 
who have used their minds enough to get any 
philosophical view of human life whatever, is 
that man is on the earth because the Power that 
gives life wishes him to be here. A great ma- 
jority of the thinking men of every age place 
their presence in the world of men as an act of 
the Life Giver, and the whole race of men, from 
the beginning of human society to our time, as a 
definite act of the Creator, who wanted on the 
earth a being competent to act in harmony with 
Himself. 



MAN'S POSSIBILITIES 



CHAPTER II 

Man's Possibilities 

TO know man and his possibilities man 
must be studied all the time. Every 
day brings under man's power some 
new phase of an old force, or some 
new use of the created things already discov- 
ered. And it is not sufficient to take one man 
off into a far corner of the world and make an 
intimate study of him. One's study must be 
made in the world of men. The daily walk in 
and out among men of different classes in life, 
of different temperaments, must be adhered to, 
if one is to get the material from which to 
draw conclusions in the study of man. 

The man who is outside of the daily life of 
ordinary men cannot study man in his normal 
life. That is why so many of our well meaning 
reformers make so many mistakes in their work 
of reforming. They know men in the abstract, 
what they are capable of being, and not in the 
concrete, as they actually are. Man must be 
among men, when at work, when at play, when 
tired and fretted by failure, and when rejoicing 

27 



28 MAN: A STUDY 

in the thought of deeds well done. Man must 
not expect to know man, if he himself has not 
been with men in all the circumstances that man 
is capable of bringing upon himself. The 
dreamer cannot know the acute man of business, 
unless by daily contact with him he comes to 
know him. The acute business man cannot know 
the dreamer unless by the same daily contact he is 
forced to know him. The lazy man cannot com- 
prehend the man of unmitigated energy. Nor 
can the constant worker see the point of view of 
the indolent man. Man must know well all these 
different characters to appreciate each point of 
view. He need not necessarily be all of them, 
but his knowledge of them must be of the most 
intimate character. He must know the experi- 
ence, the thoughts, hopes, and desires of all, if 
he is to look truly into the life of all. The man 
who laughs may also be capable of weeping, but 
no one knows that he can do so until he does. 
The melancholy man may have the reverse said 
of him. The only way to determine the possi- 
bilities of man is to mingle freely among men. 
To study them, not as curiosities, but as beings 
identical in kind with self, and worthy of as 
much consideration as we are willing to give to 
self. 



MAN'S POSSIBILITIES 29 

Having secured the field for study what do 
we find there in the nature of possibilities that 
we may credit to man? As we walk up and 
down the world, and in and out in our daily life, 
we find very little that has not been touched by 
man's hand or mind. Man has a power within 
him which enables him to see what is, and fur- 
ther, prompts him to make it contribute to his 
own purpose. Instead of having a piece of mat- 
ter weighing one hundred and fifty pounds, more 
or less, gifted with the ability to walk in and 
out in a daily search for food, we have a being 
that is capable of building up material things 
into forms that cannot be appreciated by the 
creatures whose sole ability is seen in their pow- 
er to persist in being, and to reproduce creatures 
like themselves. Man is not to be compared 
with other lumps of matter simply because he 
has in his physical make-up the elements that 
are found in lumps of matter. He is not to be 
compared with the lower forms of life simply 
because his mode of existence is continued by 
reason of the food which he must, like them, 
take into his body. Man is made up, physically, 
of the elements that are common to all creation; 
he is also animate, and must receive nourishment 
in order to retain that characteristic; yet there 



30 MAN: A STUDY 

is some added thing in man that is not found in 
the elements, as such; or by all animate crea- 
tures, as such. Thus we find in man two charac- 
teristics that are common to animate creation; 
one common to all creation ; and still man stands 
apart from all other created things or beings by 
reason of the main characteristic, found alone 
in him, which sets him off from all other world- 
ly things. 

The atom and the molecule have dissolved in- 
to other terms. The scientific basis of the ele- 
ments may change yearly (in name as well as in 
structure or action), yet man remains the same 
being, capable of the same action that has been 
his right from the beginning of what we call 
human life. The vortices may whirl, and other 
theories spring up in human minds to confute 
knowledge now dominant, but to have this so 
man must remain a being to do things forever. 

Man is the one who is doing the revising. 
Man made terms and names are being dis- 
carded and new ones made daily. Man reasons 
out theories that are but stepping stones to high- 
er ground. He says this to-day in order that he 
may say something else to-morrow. Each step 
in advance does away with the old position. In 
the midst of all this it is well to remember that 



MAN'S POSSIBILITIES 31 

man is doing it all. Man must find out things. 
He does find out things. He has more power 
than an ordinary piece of matter. He has more 
in his make-up than the highest type of animal 
known to man. He may stand in the perfect- 
ness of his manhood and look about him for 
the reasons why such a thing is so, and why an- 
other thing is different. He may show to the 
on-looker daily that he is a being different in 
kind from any other created thing in the world. 
This difference must be because of a special gift 
not held in common with any other creature. 
Matter and life he shares with all animate crea- 
tion. The elements that go to make up the 
world itself are found in him. The actions of 
man reveal to the world a still higher character- 
istic than mere matter and life; they reveal the 
vast power that man has over both those char- 
acteristics. Man is capable of controlling and 
directing the things which we see. Energized 
matter, or matter with potential energy, may 
seem to have the same power to act. We real- 
ize the difference between it and man so soon as 
the stored up energy is spent. We find the once 
animate mass cold and lifeless. Man has for- 
ever in him this ability to reveal life, to do 
things that require intelligence in the actor. Man 



32 MAN: A STUDY 

is for all time an energized being. When he 
seems to have lost this power to do things, by 
reason of the absence of the life principle, he 
ceases to be man, he has become a corpse. This 
permanent power over all creation sets man off 
from all other created beings on the earth. The 
radio-centric part of man is a different thing 
from the radio-centric part of mere matter. The 
non-checkable changes in the physical part of 
man cannot take away, or alter materially, that 
hidden mysterious power which sets him off 
from all other created beings. 

The power of creation is man's. His possi- 
bilities are summed up in that sentence. Man 
may put life, energy, into inanimate objects; and 
new life into animate creation. If you have 
not seen man's child, an intricate machine, going 
through its appointed movements, turning out a 
newspaper ready for the street, you have not 
seen to any extent the possibilities of man. If 
you have not heard the perfected machine re- 
producing the voice and song of the world's best 
singers, you are not in touch with the powers of 
man. Man may take the roughest lump from 
the mine, the one that held out the smallest 
promise to the novice, and bring it back re- 
splendent with the glory that only the Creator 



MAN'S POSSIBILITIES 33 

could make possible. Man's possibilities and 
powers fall not far short of the Life Giver him- 
self. The Life Giver stands out from the world 
because of His vast Power over as well as in 
the world; man, the highest creation on the 
world's surface, stands out from all else be- 
cause of his vast power over all things in the 
world. With the Creator all things are possi- 
ble ; with man, all things, save the bringing into 
being of something that never existed potential- 
ly, or the creating of independent life, are possi- 
ble. Man not only names the other parts of 
creation, and the other creatures that exist, but 
also is able to bring all things to serve him, and 
to change the variety of all other created things 
by judicious reasoning and action. 

The power or possibility that surmounts all 
other powers and possibilities in man, however, 
is the possibility of self -development. This is 
concretely revealed to the world by inner knowl- 
edge of self, and outward expression of self. 
Man, while busy with things other than himself, 
may reveal great possibilities and powers, but it 
is when he takes himself as the object of his 
study, and the thing to be perfected, that he 
shows the greatest possibility of all. 



MAN'S CHIEF CHARACTERISTIC 



CHAPTER III 

Man's Chief Characteristic 

MAN'S power to control himself un- 
der any circumstances is the great- 
est gift that he evidences. This 
power is so called because it is one 
of the last powers realized. Man comes up 
from infancy and youth, using, as he progresses, 
all of his powers. He shows through them all 
the first power noticed, the power that prompts 
him to strive to satisfy his desires. And he ex- 
erts himself to the utmost in order to keep con- 
tent the inner man. The child has been known 
to so exert itself in this attempt to get what it 
wanted that it brought upon itself instant death. 
Pulling the cloth under a lighted lamp has 
caused the death of many infants. The youth 
has been known to go bravely to his death when 
his highest aim was to see upon his school or 
academy walls a trophy won on the football 
field. The full grown man has gone down into 
the gutter and into Hell because he would have 
the drink that his inner desires craved. 

The animal is not expected to exhibit more 
37 



38 MAN: A STUDY 

intelligence, or as much, as man. Yet you will 
find the escaped fish quite wary when the hook is 
proffered the second time. The trusting kitten 
does not take food into its mouth hastily from 
the hand that has once given it something that 
was found unpalatable. Unlike man the ani- 
mal averts in the second instance that experience 
which has been found to have been disagreeable 
or disappointing. This fact alone would not 
make us say that animals make up a world that 
is higher than the world of man. The animal, 
in the first instance, follows its desires when the 
man, without previous experience in that im- 
mediate field, could predict disappointment for 
the animal. The seeming virtue, or higher in- 
telligence, in the animal, in that it does not al- 
low itself to become subject to a second disap- 
pointment, is not sufficient to place the animal 
in a class higher than that occupied by man. It 
shows, however, that man must have stronger 
impulses or desires than those incident to the 
animal life. Having stronger impulses or de- 
sires, it takes a stronger power to control them. 
When man has desires of the animal class, mul- 
tiplied to the intensity that they can be in man, it 
is a more difficult battle that he wages when he 
endeavors to make his body give up those de- 



MAN'S CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS 39 

sires. The animal stops to see if the conditions 
are the same as when the disappointment or dis- 
agreeable experience came in the previous in- 
stance. If the conditions look the same, the an- 
imal turns oft" in another direction. The desire 
is put aside. Man, instead, having within him 
an intense longing to do the contemplated thing, 
persists in doing it even in the face of the knowl- 
edge that the result cannot be other than disap- 
pointing and harmful. He goes near, sees clear- 
ly that the experience is to be exactly the same 
as before, and his desire is so strong that it 
makes him repeat the performance that proved 
once to be of no worth to him or to anyone else 
in the world. 

When man begins to assert the power which 
he has, potentially, over his body, then he puts 
into being the highest power that he possesses. 
As you meet men daily you group them into two 
classes; those who have learned to exert this 
power; and those who have not yet learned to 
exert it. You will find yourself picking out men 
whom you know who seem, at all times, to have 
themselves in command; and men who are al- 
ways getting themselves and others into trouble 
because they have not, at all times, themselves 
in command. You are helped in your seeking 



40 MAN : A STUDY 

after knowledge of these two classes by a study 
of yourself. You see how easy it is to give way 
to sudden impulses, and to yield to ardent de- 
sires. You find that there are times when, to 
gain the object you have in view, you would do 
almost anything. And the object in view may 
have no connection whatever with what may 
be called your higher life. When you have se- 
sured the mastery of yourself the first time you 
are made aware of a new life that is possible 
for you. You then see that the body, yes, the 
whole man, is safer when ruled by the thinking 
part than when under the dominion of the flesh. 
To give way to passion seems the easiest thing 
that man does, if one may judge from the fre- 
quency of such action. To indulge the appetites 
of man seems no difficult task. The whole of 
man's life is a warfare between what is called 
good in him and what is called bad. He inclines 
toward what is bad, yet he has what may be 
called a leaning toward the good. The highest 
good that can come to man by his own act is to 
get himself under the control of the real man in 
him. Such control to be evident at all times. 
We know that to achieve temporary control not 
much power is demanded. The drunkard has 
his moments of sobriety when he solemly vows 



MAN'S CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS 41 

that he will never touch a drop of intoxicating 
liquor. The roue has his moments, when, 
touched by the meanness of his recent act, he 
vows that he will keep his passions within due 
bounds. It is the man who controls himself un- 
der all circumstances who exhibits to the world 
the highest power that man has within him. Not 
one lapse in act; there may be desires to do so, 
for there would be no virtue in self control, if 
there were not desires and impulses to resist. 
We cannot expect man to become so holy that 
fleshly thoughts and fleshly desires would flee 
from him. It is because this controlling power 
over self is exerted in a world that prompts man 
to commit certain acts that are harmful to him- 
self and others that the power looms so large 
before our eyes. Place a man in the midst of 
every day life and temptation, it is the power 
within him that keeps him from yielding to the 
ever insistent call of his fleshly desires that calls 
forth our wonder and our admiration. It is the 
greatest power in the province of man. It is 
the power that reveals the presence of the mas- 
ter. The fact that such men can be found in 
organized society is warrant for the assumption 
that all men may reveal this power to the world. 
The sight of such a man should be inspiration 



42 MAN : A STUDY 

enough to make beholders strive for the same 
position. It shows a higher ideal of life and 
manhood than is ordinarily held by man. When 
men are seen to be creatures of habit; yielding 
readily to sin; then man's estimate of man is at 
its lowest. It is when the master of self comes 
into view that man gets an adequate view of 
man. Because the tongue sends to the mind its 
appreciation of the sweet flavors of the world 
it has no right to say what the stomach will have 
put into it. Because the exercise of certain or- 
gans of man yield him pleasure they have no 
right to dictate to man the times when they shall 
be exercised. The man should not be a servant 
to his tastes and desires. Rather he should be 
master of all that goes to make up his being. It 
is when man stands up before us king of his own 
person, lord of himself, that we get the view and 
idea of him that we should have. Then we see 
him as he is capable of manifesting himself. 
Then we see him using the highest power he pos- 
sesses, controlling the temporary form in order 
to keep wholesome the permanent life principle. 



MAN'S GRADUAL REALIZATION OF 
HIS POWERS 



CHAPTER IV 

Man's Gradual Realization of his Powers 

THE Realization of man's powers was 
a slow process. The slowness of men 
in becoming perfectly self-controlled 
makes us say this. Primitive man, so 
far as we are able to judge from historical ac- 
counts that may be relied upon, revealed the ba- 
sal powers of man, the ability to think, and the 
ability to put the thought into execution. He 
was placed in a world where every visible thing 
could be brought to serve him. Yet we find 
him rising very slowly from his primitive 
thoughts and acts. Each man to-day goes 
through this same stage of development. The 
thinking ability, though a part of the equipment 
from the beginning, has not been used to its 
full capacity at any time. The ability to do 
things, to act, though present from the first con- 
scious moments, has never been exerted to the 
limit possible in any line of work. Every age 
shows an advance in the use of these faculties of 
man. Volumes have been written which tell us 
of the ever enlarging grasp of man, over the 

45 



46 MAN : A STUDY 

faculty of thought, and in the world of action. 
Yes, volumes will be written in the ages to come. 
And each will mark the expansion of a mind 
that we fain would say we know completely 
now. 

The man who teaches his fellowmen how to 
use the faculty of thought must get of life the 
sweeter share. To have within one's hearing a 
group of men to whom the power of the mind 
and intellect is a sealed book, is to have within 
one's grasp the greatest opportunity that the 
world can offer. He is a dull teacher indeed 
who cannot make the blood tingle in the veins 
of such men. He is not in the right position, if 
in his own veins the blood does not run faster, 
when, for the first time, he opens up to the 
slumbering minds before him the vast possibili- 
ties of the thinking man. 

He must have been the Supreme Power who 
could create a being as great as man is capable 
of being. The first man, like the new born babe, 
reveals but a part of what man as man has in 
him. A new creature in a new world would 
naturally seem crude and undeveloped. The 
marked progress from the first days reveals to 
us the innate power that was in man from 
the very beginning. He who could put in- 



MAN'S REALIZATION OF HIS POWERS 47 

to the original being the capacity for the 
thought and action seen in man to-day must have 
been a Wonderful Being indeed. A Being high- 
er than any met in the experience of man upon 
earth. A Being who sums up in Himself more 
than the highest thought of man can attribute 
to Him. The ever constant increase in man's 
mind of the power to comprehend things that 
are, and the things that may be, would prompt 
the most conservative man to admit the truth of 
this. 

It is almost impossible to think that man 
alone has been the cause of man's highest 
thought and action. The life, ordinarily lived 
by men whose minds have not been opened up, 
does not tend to make man attribute any such 
power as we have witnessed to the Life Giver. 
It is the highest type of man that causes us to 
have the highest conception of Him from whom 
all life came. The advance of man has been 
possible, in part, because of the inherent power 
in man. Nothing new, in the way of faculties 
or powers, is added to man's equipment during 
his earthly life. He develops the original gift. 
This he does by every aid that he can find. Noth- 
ing that he can do will give him any new power 
or faculty. He may wear an electric battery 



48 MAN : A STUDY 

on his person to stimulate the flow of blood, en- 
abling him to continue his thinking beyond the 
ordinary power of endurance, but had he not 
in the beginning a mind capable of deep thought, 
no amount of electric batteries would give it to 
him. A man may take elements into his body to 
stimulate his circulation of blood, thus making 
it possible for him to pursue a protracted train 
of reasoning, yet no one of these stimulants 
could cause him to think, had he not the power 
to think before he took the stimulant. The 
germinal power came with man when he came. 
It is not the possession of it that amazes us. The 
ever increasing worth of the power holds our at* 
tention. There seems to be no limit fixed to the 
development of this power. It is man's gift 
from his Maker. It existed in germ in the first 
man. To-day it has reached a high state in its 
upward march to the Life Giver. 

If this is so with the power of thought it is no 
less so with the power of action. The prelimi- 
nary actions of any creature are more crude 
and reasonless than are the subsequent actions. 
This applies to all animate creation. To-day 
we look for a difference between the childhood 
of a race and the maturity of the same. This 
difference we expect to find in its thought and 



MAN'S REALIZATION OF HIS POWERS 49 

in its action. Tribes or races, cannibalistic in 
tendency, coming in contact with forces that 
make them see the possibilities that lie in them 
and before them, leave their cannibalism on one 
side in their onward march of development. 
Could such tribes and races be kept free from 
the evil influences of corrupted wills the onward 
and upward march would know no check. It 
is when actors of decidedly bad parts come upon 
the scene, leading weak pupils astray, that we 
send up our cry for more men in the world 
whose purpose it is to do the acts that conform 
to the highest type of life known to man. It 
is when the non-thinking men become the leaders 
of those who should be taught the whole possi- 
bility of man that our cry goes up for more 
teachers and leaders of men from the class that 
has made most of the powers that are in man; 
from the class of men who count it a high privi- 
lege to put one soul on the path that leads to 
the highest development of self, on the path that 
will lead man to see between his Creator and 
himself a resemblance that maketh him not 
ashamed. There are men of the type mentioned. 
Their presence gives ground for the above. 
That more men have not developed to this point 
is in part the fault of the men who have. It is 



50 MAN: A STUDY 

true that no man can know any more than he is 
willing to take into his mind. His teachers may 
teach things that he does not know, but if he is 
not sufficiently interested, the thing passes over 
him and is lost to him. Given such a set of 
men as pupils individual study will tell the think- 
ing man that some key will open the mind of 
every man present. Here is a truth that must 
be placed in every mind before him. He goes 
to work, ever varying his method, ever changing 
his attack, until finally each man has seen the 
thing the teacher would have him see. A man 
who knows something that his brother ought to 
know has not performed his duty until he has 
shared the knowledge with his brother man. 
The brother may not want the knowledge ? He 
may resent the attempts to teach him? Just so 
much more difficult is the duty to be performed. 
It remains a duty no matter how arduous it may 
be made. The responsibility of telling rests up- 
on those who know. This is a permanent re- 
sponsibility. It remains just so long as any are 
without the desired knowledge. Only those 
who know can tell ; only those who do not know 
should persist in the minds of those who know. 
If men of the highest intelligence, whose minds 
are developed and raised to their highest power 



MAN'S REALIZATION OF HIS POWERS 51 

do not feel the burden of raising the minds con- 
tent with a lower state of power, then the minds 
not yet aware of their potential ability will come 
up accidentally at best. In them is the dormant 
power of development, it needs rousing. Only 
those who have waked up to the fact that mind 
must ever grow to come into its own, can arouse 
the sleeping ones. The Power that gave it to 
man could stir it up, but that is the unusual way 
of doing it. Human mind should be opened up 
by human mind. The rubbing together of hu- 
man minds has brought about the great develop- 
ment of mind. Man must rub up against man, 
his idea being to develop self and the powers of 
self; and to do his part in the development of 
self in others. 



ARE THERE CREATED BEINGS SUPE- 
RIOR TO MAN? 



CHAPTER V 

Are There Created Beings Superior to 

Man? 

PHILOSOPHY, as well as Biology, 
teaches us that life can come only from 
life. It also teaches us that the highest 
type of offspring cannot go above the 
highest type of progenitor. If these two prop- 
ositions hold, and the world readily accepts 
them, then only one conclusion remains when 
considering animate creation. That conclusion 
is that there must have been a Being existing 
from all time who was capable of giving, or 
creating life. Having such a Being, with such 
Power, we have a cause sufficient to account for 
all the living creatures we see, or know to exist. 
Man, being a product of the Life Giver, is 
subordinate to at least one Superior. Taking 
the visible world and its known creatures alone 
into consideration one would be tempted to say 
that there is no created being superior to man; 
and no Being superior to him save the Life Giv- 
er Himself. Man is the lord of all creation it 
seems ; at least the Lord of the visible and tangi- 
ble things known unto all. 

55 



56 MAN: A STUDY 

Before you decide this matter of created be- 
ings superior to man, superior only because they 
are between man and the Life Giver, some 
thought is necessary. Having your study of 
man in the world, apart from the teachers of 
traditional beliefs, man is apt to find things that 
send his mind out in search of other forms of 
life not known definitely to man. It is not a 
strange sight, because it is not an infrequent 
sight, to see men of age and intelligence assem- 
bled together to receive what they call messages 
from the spirit world. For these people this 
world of spirits generally means the world that 
is made up of the spirits that have at some time 
inhabited human bodies, but which now are free 
from those bodies and make up the population 
of the place where such spirits go. The expres- 
sion, however, "His good spirit has charge of 
him, preventing him from going astray," makes 
us feel that we cannot limit the spirit world to 
the souls only of those humans who have peo- 
pled the earth. We are led to think, because of 
the frequency of the above remark, that for 
each human soul there is another spirit or guide 
that never enters the world in flesh. This spirit 
has its sufficient part to play in aiding and as- 
sisting the soul it has been appointed to guide. 



ARE THERE SUPERIOR BEINGS? 57 

All this may come to us because of the tradition- 
al teaching of the highest civilization. But any 
man in the world who makes an intimate study 
of man would have this idea brought out in his 
mind. He could see that life is the only thing 
that can produce life. He would see that the 
offspring does not excel the progenitor. And, 
going back to the time when there was no living 
creature upon earth, he would admit that some 
life giving power must come in in order to cause 
life to be in any created form. Having this pow- 
er it would be seen that the variety of forms of 
life depended wholly upon the will of the Pow- 
er producing the life. Then that Power could 
also say whether all the forms of life created 
should be visible to all other forms of life or 
not. In other words, admit a Giver of Life to 
created forms, and you open up to any intelli- 
gent mind vast possibilities that go beyond any 
form of being met with in man's experience. 
You have also made possible the vast army of 
spirits that would be needed by the Life Giving 
Power, if He had willed that every human soul 
should have its guardian spirit. 

Man cannot say that he caused himself to ex- 
ist. No man's earthly father can say it. Life 
has its source not in man, but in a Being superior 



58 



MAN: A STUDY 



to man, a Being who could put life into any ob- 
ject that He willed to see alive. The out and 
out Evolutionist must admit that life had a be- 
ginning. He may not agree with the tradition- 
alist that the various forms of life now seen and 
known received instantaneously the gift of life. 
His idea that all forms of life came from one 
form of life may stand in his way. He must 
admit that life had a beginning and develop- 
ment. He cannot deny the statement that life 
comes only from life. So the evolutionist is 
brought to a point where he must agree with the 
traditionalist in saying, that there is a Being 
from whom the first spark of life, as we know it, 
came, He who put into the form created the 
germinant power. The men who think agree in 
this: that the life we know had its source in a 
higher life that we do not fully know. At this 
time it matters little what the Giver of life as 
we know it may be called. Even a hasty view of 
man would compel a thinker to attribute great 
power to the Being capable of producing man. 
The man who loves to study would be forced 
to take time to consider the nature of the Being 
who could put into existence the involved being 
known to man as man. One of the things that 
we could expect from the thinking would be 



ARE THERE SUPERIOR BEINGS? 59 

this. The Being performing such a great work 
must have been capable of performing a greater 
work, and must still be able to repeat all that 
He has ever done. He did not give to man all 
of His power, for man cannot give independent 
life to inanimate objects. The Life Giver did 
not exhaust Himself in the work of giving life 
to created forms; He gives life in the same way 
to-day. (It is one of the accepted views of the 
highest civilization that every man born into 
the world alive has had placed in the formed 
body, by the power of the Life Giver, that spark 
which animates the product of male and fe- 
male.) 

Having such a Power as the source of our 
life we can easily see the possibility of other 
forms of life not yet met with in our experience. 
The man who believes in guardian spirits, crea- 
tures as we are of the Life Giver, created for 
the definite work that he believes they do, must 
be allowed his belief. It is a possible presump- 
tion. And if the Source of Life be good in 
character and intent, the above is a probable 
method adopted to bring man to the Life Giv- 
er's thought and habit. As a belief it must be 
granted to man. The very presence in the world 
of man, with the vast powers that he reveals, 



60 MAN : A STUDY 

makes highly probable the existence of beings 
not now known to man. Should the Life Giver, 
He who caused to be all that we see, be tied 
down in His plan or work by the limits experi- 
enced by a part of His creation? 



MAN THE FINAL ARBITER OF HIS 
OWN ACTIONS 



CHAPTER VI 

Man the Final Arbiter of His Own 
Actions 

WERE a man to tell you that you 
were bound to do everything which 
you did, that no other course was 
open to you, it was absolutely neces- 
sary that you did thus and so, you would feel 
like telling that man that he knew nothing about 
the matter. There are few things harder to be- 
lieve to-day than the statement that man is neces- 
sarily bound to a certain course of conduct; i. e. 
the one that he pursues. It is quite easy to be- 
lieve any scientific fact that comes to us through 
authoritative channels. We take the statements 
of astronomical authorities when there is not the 
least possible chance to verify their statements. 
We believe accounts found in ordinary newspa- 
pers when they tell us of feats in air, in sea, or 
on land. Our credulity seems unlimited, yet 
when a man tells us that we are merely running 
and acting in a groove, out of which we cannot 
get, we, at the moment, have presumption 
enough to tell that man that he knows no more 
about it than we do. 

63 



64 MAN : A STUDY 

We should not turn hastily from the man 
who thinks differently from us. He may have 
seen a truth -that has escaped us. It seems rea- 
sonable to suppose that the founder of all life 
would be able to outline a course for His created 
life to run. It is possible for Him to do what 
He pleases with His creation. Had the Life 
Giver mapped out the life of each of the human 
beings to whom He gave the breath of life, He 
would have been doing just the thing to fit in 
with the ideas that some men have of a giver of 
life. There are men who think that all that 
they create, or make, belongs to them individ- 
ually to do with as they will. They cannot see 
that if their creation is to be of benefit to all 
mankind it should be given to all mankind with- 
out restriction. They retain by patent or copy- 
right their control over the child of their pow- 
ers. So they follow it to the grave, until it is 
buried by reason of some other man's superior 
creation. To men of this class it is an easy step 
from human creation and control to Divine Cre- 
ation and Control. The author and maker is 
the guide and finisher. The Being, creating 
forms and giving life to them, ordains for each 
a certain task in a certain place. Should an in- 
dividual worker jump to the farthest point in 



MAN THE FINAL ARBITER 65 

the world from that in which the work was be- 
gun, he did it because the Power that gave him 
his being ordered it. This whole plan seems 
reasonable enough ; it is possible. The Giver of 
Life, in that He made possible the life of the 
individual human being, revealed to the world 
the fact that He had sufficient power to rule and 
guide human beings. But does an intimate study 
of man make anyone really believe that the Life 
Giver is controlling the actions of men? 

When you see masses of men banded togeth- 
er in order that other men may be employed at 
the smallest possible wage, and made to labor 
the longest possible number of hours a day, do 
you feel that He, who first introduced life upon 
earth, no matter what you may think of Him 
as to His character as a whole, planned that 
men should so act against men? When you 
see multitudes of indolent and shiftless men at- 
tacking with stones and staves other men who 
are trying to earn honestly enough money to 
keep their families alive, do you think that these 
men are obeying any other being than them- 
selves? There are in the world many men 
whose study is not what it should be. Men and 
money get together daily, but men fail to study 
one as much as they do the other. If men would 



66 MAN: A STUDY 

study how to make men as much as they study 
how to make money, there would not be so many 
brands of socialism in the world. All men 
would be of the same brand. They would study 
on one side the multitudes that seek a living 
wage; they would study on the other side the 
men capable of paying this wage. Such study 
would eventuate in a better understanding, a 
higher ground for the settlement needed, and a 
happier issue than the world has as yet seen. 

Looking at things as they are we see too much 
of the lower nature of man revealed in the world 
to prompt us to believe that man is but follow- 
ing out a plan of life laid down by the Life Giv- 
er. The contraries of human life must be ex- 
plained on a different basis too. The man who 
kills his brother man in a brawl brought on by 
a discussion over a strike, is seen a few moments 
later giving his last crust of bread to the starv- 
ing child of his loins. We can readily see that 
man has a better nature; the occasional ruling 
of that better nature gives us a picture of life 
different from that which we most frequently 
get. We think back to the time when the first 
man stood before his Maker. Man then had in 
him a part of the Life Giver. If he had it then 
he has it now. Suppose that the Life Giver had 



MAN THE FINAL ARBITER 67 

decided to control man's actions in the world, 
would they conform to the better nature of man 
or to the lower nature, the bad nature? To an- 
swer this definitely man has to take another crit- 
ical look into man to see if there is in his make- 
up that thing which we call bad. Is man bad, 
or only capable of becoming so ? 

One does not have to look back far in the his- 
tory of the world to come into contact with man 
almost as he was when he had placed in him the 
breath of life by the Life Giver. The Ameri- 
can Indian, before he came in contact with the 
white man, was a good man. His habits of life 
were clean, this is made evident to-day in the 
manly characters still found among the remnant. 
But go among the remnant of some of the tribes 
and examine the younger generation. You will 
find male and female debased in thought, word 
and deed. You will find a diseased, shiftless, 
and sorrowful lot, not reflecting credit upon 
man or his country. Yet they are the same In- 
dians, capable of the same wild, open, and free 
life of yesterday. They are the same kind of 
men and women that found pleasure in the life 
of nature, free from the wiles of men. The evil 
desires, the evil thoughts, the evil deeds, these 
are the dregs of civilization, carried among 



68 MAN : A STUDY 

them by men of bad wills. These things have 
made the Indian seem a despicable creature. The 
t4 bad Indian" of to-day is a sign and token of 
the work of men who were controlled by noth- 
ing else than their love for the things of the 
lower nature of man. On one Reservation, in 
a supposedly civilized State, every crime com- 
mitted in recent years has been traced back to its 
inception ; and strong drink, introduced into the 
Reservation by characterless white men, has 
been found responsible in every instance. 

Man, kept apart from the evil wills of the 
world of men, is given to good thoughts and 
deeds. If man in his own self is such, is it not 
permissible to imagine his Sender-into-the-world 
to be of like character? Imagining Him to be 
the same, would it not be probable that, if He 
were to keep the controlling hand in man's life, 
He would have that life reveal its best thoughts, 
words, and deeds? The highest type of life 
that man was capable of living? 

The possibility in every man to become good, 
to do every day the actions that show no ill-will, 
vindictive spirit, corrupt mind, would cause us, 
if we allowed it to do so, to say that there are 
no really bad men in the world. Those whom 
we call bad, because of their infraction of laws 



MAN THE FINAL ARBITER 69 

written or unwritten, are men, who, for the mo- 
ment, obey an impulse that is not in harmony 
with their real self. If man cannot obey the good 
impulse, is bound to obey the bad impulse, then 
there is no such thing as virtue in the world; we 
are all actors, playing our several parts until 
the curtain takes us from the public gaze. Give 
a man the power to choose the way he shall go, 
the particular part he shall play to-day, and 
every day; then you have a man to whom you 
may impute goodness or badness as his chosen 
part may warrant. The good man, to whom no 
other way was open, cannot be called such by 
right. You may as well call it a virtue in the 
binder, when every day it so beautifully ties up 
the cut sheaves of grain. The creator of it made 
it possible for it to do this work well. It does 
it. It cannot do anything else; there is no 
choice for it. No man would ascribe virtue to 
such a machine. No more would the man who 
is called good deserve the title, if it were impos- 
sible for him to be anything else. The man who 
commits sins, or crimes, should not be punished 
for such things, if he could not choose the path 
that led away from such deeds. The whole sys- 
tem of jurisprudence is built up upon the idea 
that man may do, or he may not do, a given 



7 o MAN: A STUDY 

thing appearing in his mind. Make man a 
marionette, with some invisible hand pulling the 
strings that make him act, and you have taken 
away from man the very power upon which rest 
all the reasons for human or Divine laws. 

When a man tells us that our actions are all 
planned beforehand by the Power that caused 
us to be, we do well if we talk reasonably with 
him on the subject. If there are beings of a 
higher order than man, they may be endued with 
a power of influence that can be exerted upon 
man. If this power is exerted upon man, in 
order that man may be led to do certain things, 
in preference to other contemplated things, then 
there is another foundation reason for the man 
who believes that our lives are planned by a 
Power above us. Yet this reason is not sufficient 
to support his whole belief. To get a base that 
will support his entire faith we must say point 
blank that the Power that made us is still claim- 
ing ownership, and still exacting royalty; just 
the same as human beings do who are intelligent 
enough to discover some new way to make shoes 
with less expense, or to invent some new ma- 
chine that will put the finished product of the 
cotton field upon the market quicker, cheaper, 
and better than in the old way. We are crea- 



MAN THE FINAL ARBITER 71 

tions of a Mind, and that Mind must control 
our actions. This seems to be the logic of the 
case. 

No one would deny that the possibility exists 
in the Giver of Life to enter at any moment and 
change, if He so desired, the mode of life of the 
beings to whom He had given life. Nor could 
any one, admitting His power to cause life to 
be, deny His incidental power to influence the 
life that He has created. If the life came from 
Him, it would seem natural that He still has the 
power to direct, if He so chose, the life which 
He had created. This gives us only an influence 
in the life of man, not a compelling force that 
cannot be resisted. Yet, were we pressed by our 
friend who thinks that all men are controlled 
in life by a Power above them, controlled so 
firmly that while they seem to have a choice of 
two ways that lie before them, they really have 
no such choice, we could not deny the possibility 
of such a thing when we think of the power that 
must be possessed by the Being who could intro- 
duce the life we see into a lifeless world. 

It is chiefly the fact that man does the evil 
instead of the good, works the works of the 
flesh instead of the good works of the heart and 
soul, that we say that man is ruler of himself. 



72 MAN : A STUDY 

He wills to do a certain thing and he does it. 
He feels that he may do it or leave it undone, 
just as he chooses. As man studies man there 
is no principle that becomes so firmly fixed in his 
mind as this one : — man may be master of him- 
self every conscious minute of his life upon 
earth. He is the one from whom every member 
of his body takes orders. If the order is to dis- 
obey man's law, the law is disobeyed. If the 
order is to live in peace and harmony with all 
mankind, the order is obeyed. There are 
forces working upon man that cannot be seen, 
forces that cause him to change his course daily. 

"We see not half the causes of our deeds, 
Seeking them wholly in the outer life, 
And heedless of the encircling spirit world 
Which, though unseen, is felt, and sows in us 
All germs of pure and world-wide purposes." 

No matter what it is that causes man to alter his 
course, to choose this way rather than the other, 
it is man who changes the course. He may re- 
sist to the last all the forces and influences, he 
may run his course without yielding to any out- 
side thing or power. Man has the final say 
in every action; when a man acts it is because he 
himself has willed to do so. 



MAN'S OBLIGATION 



CHAPTER VII 

Man's Obligation 

IT does not take long for a thinking man to 
see that he is powerless, in his own strength 
to provide for his own needs. The owner 
of the great western farm, who tills the 
soil, and sows the seed, has not the power to 
bring the seed to fruition. He knows not which 
of his fields is to bring forth the expected crop. 
He may irrigate the soil, thus giving to the 
young shoot that which it needs to keep life in 
it. He may, artificially, cause light and heat to 
lend their aid in the battle for life and results. 
But the seed has many moments between seed 
time and harvest time of which the farmer 
knoweth not. There are moments when the 
sower will give up all hope of reaping any har- 
vest. A short time later he finds that he did 
not know the hidden power of the seed, the soil, 
and the Giver of Power to both. 

Man, in his infancy, imagines that it is by his -> 
own right hand or by the cunning of his brain 
that he lives. At this stage his mind has not 
come into its own. The man is yet untutored in 

75 



76 MAN : A STUDY 

the world of realities. When his mind is doing 
its full work, taking into it and turning over in 
it all the things that it may, then man comes to a 
different conclusion. Then it is that he finds he 
is dependent upon a force outside of himself. If 
he be anxious to increase his knowledge, his own 
worth to himself and to his fellowman, he will 
pursue his study of man's dependence. He will 
say, "This force outside of me which aids the 
work I do in the fields is, or is not, due to previ- 
ous arrangement of Him who gave me life." 
Upon investigation it is found that all of the 
needs of created beings are arranged for, in or- 
Vder that the life given to them may be sustained. 
The man then readily sees that only a Mind ac- 
quainted with the needs of all created life could 
so adequately provide for those needs. And to 
the Supreme Being, who caused the first life to 
be upon the earth, he ascribes a mind of like 
character to his own. If the Supreme Being is 
wise enough to provide for all of man's physical 
needs, and the physical needs of all created life, 
He would not be the Being above all others 
should He stop with this. Having provided the 
means by which the life given might be sustained, 
He would surely have, in His own Mind at 
least, a plan of life for all of His created beings. 



MAN'S OBLIGATION 77 

Can we find such a plan in our study of man? 

If any plan of life is in the Mind of the Life 
Giver for the created beings that man knows, it 
must be found in the world and in man. Go 
into a section of your city inhabited by the poor- 
est and the most ignorant. As you walk through 
the unfamiliar streets, and meet the unfamiliar 
faces, you are tempted to feel that this part of 
your city has no part or place in your life. You 
walk hurriedly by the squalid scenes. Perhaps 
you draw your coat closely about you lest it 
touch any of the wretched beings in your path. 
Should you by chance meet an acquaintance 
while on this visit you are put to it to account 
for your presence there. There is apt to be a 
feeling in your mind that makes you think you 
are not one with the people you have seen. That 
the scenes you witnessed have nothing to do with 
your life. The whole thing must pass from you 
as a horrible night-mare. Despite this feeling on 
your part you are one with the worst type of 
man that you have beheld. The revolting scenes 
that you have witnessed are as much a part of 
your life as they are a part of the life of those 
directly involved in them. 

Human life came from a common source. 
Any being that reveals the inherent powers of 



78 MAN : A STUDY 

man is potentially the equal of the highest type 
\/of man. Where do we learn this? By a study 
of man as he is. We find that all men are broth- 
ers because of the common Father, or Source of 
human life. Being brothers it is the duty of 
man to be brotherly to all mankind. This means 
that the squalid tenement and its unclean inhab- 
itants mean something to every man. The feel- 
ing which we have when we view the poor side 
of human existence does not become us unless it 
be a brotherly feeling. If there is the least 
trace of aloofness in spirit, "these people are too 
wretched, these conditions too squalid for my 
presence,' 5 then we are not yet ready to go to 
such places or to meet such people. | The man 
who imagines that birth, position, wealth, or 
any other human thing sets him up above his fel- 
lowmen, is not yet fit to mingle among men. He 
is fit only for a solitary seat, where, unmolested 
by lesser beings, he may feast upon his own vir- 
tues. As a leader of men he cannot be success- 
ful for he can bring men only to his own level. 
Beyond a certain point he cannot lead them or 
direct them. And such a man will be content to 
make copies of himself. The man who has 
realized the fact that no human thing makes one 
man of greater worth than another, in the sight 



MAN'S OBLIGATION 79 

of Him who caused man to be, is the man who 
can direct men on beyond the position which he 
himself holds. Weaknesses may prevent him 
from ascending the heights that are in his vision. 
He has the power to show his brothers the way, 
and he has the will to wish that his brothers may 
reach the heights. Considering himself one of 
the many among whom he finds himself daily, 
he is able, by reason of his lack of self exalta- 
tion, to win men to a life different from the life 
to which they have been devoting themselves. 

There is another trait in man that prevents 
him from benefiting other men, or being bene- 
fited himself by his contact with other men. 
That trait is called selfishness. It may be de- 
scribed by the phrases — "All for self and noth- 
ing for others." It is a trait seen in every day 
life, and in every section of life. No place, no 
matter how high in life's station the people con- 
gregating there may be, is free from this trait 
of selfishness. It makes one man send another 
to the poorhouse. It makes one man send an- 
other man to the penitentiary. It makes one 
man drive another man to suicide and the grave. 
It is a relic of barbarism, of the time when a 
man's life was worth only the material things 
which he possessed. This is the trait in man that 



80 MAN: A STUDY 

prompts one to use that grinding process by 
which the very soul of another is torn beyond 
all recognition. It is man's trait, prompting 
him to reveal the truth in the much worn phrase 
— "The survival of the fittest." 

This character is not the thinker. He is not 
the man who has found, by contact with man, 
his duty to man. One, with this trait prominent, 
has not been looking for the obligation that rests 
upon him to treat all mankind as brothers. He 
has been, and is, too busy exacting his rights to 
think of his duties. It is given only to the man 
who seeks, to find. It is he who starts out with 
a strong purpose to know something about the 
things that may be known who gets the knowl- 
edge. There must be willingness to understand 
before a man can understand. The selfish man 
changes his part only when deep in his heart is 
the desire to know and help other men. The 
greatest joy that comes to the worker among 
men is the knowledge that he gains ; making him 
see the possibility, inherent even in a selfish man, 
to change almost instantly from his old self to 
a being with love and care for his brother man. 
The old phrase changes to this — "The survival 
of all by the aid of the fittest." Then you have 
a whole creation, so far as man is concerned, 



MAN'S OBLIGATION 81 

not a divided or split one. You have one man 
working for another man because they are parts 
of the same whole. You have in man a keen 
feeling that only by such thought and work for 
others can the obligation that rests upon him be 
met. The man possessing the most must share 
with him who possesses the least. The man who 
is strongest must help the man who is weakest; 
that the whole human army may present as 
strong a front as is possible; revealing in a 
united and harmonious whole the plan of life 
ordained by the Giver of Life. Not only should 
man live and let live, — that is but a step in the 
sphere of selfishness, — he should add to this 
good will his assisting power. Not merely re- 
fusing to resist the efforts of others to live and 
prosper, but actively helping the others to attain 
the good things which they seek. This is the step 
out of the realm of selfishness into the sphere of 
usefulness. This step makes man a co-worker 
with the Giver of Life, in that he is helping to 
perpetuate the life given. He is also calling at- 
tention to the fact that the life given was meant 
to be a life of service to others and not a life de- 
voted to self. Those who see this as the plan 
of life for human beings, and follow it, because 
it seems that it must be the plan of the Supreme 



82 MAN : A STUDY 

Being, reap a thousand fold where formerly 
they viewed barren fields. The joy of man when 
he gets fully in touch with man is a joy that is 
not easily given up or taken away. 

It is renewed day by day, it is sufficient re- 
ward for acquiescing in the life plan for human 
beings ordained by the Life Giver. It is the 
highest plan that man can find in the world of 
man, it must therefore have some relation to the 
plan that the Supreme Being would formulate, 
were He to formulate one. Man's obligation 
is to find out the highest plan of life and to 
adopt it as his own; the plan of life that takes 
into consideration the whole body of human be- 
ings and not the detached parts or sections; the 
plan that tells man what he must do for others 
as well as what he may do for himself. 



UPON WHAT DOES MAN'S OBLIGA- 
TION REST? 



CHAPTER VIII 
Upon What Does Man's Obligation Rest? 

THE man who thinks will admit that 
there is an obligation resting upon 
him to pursue a certain line of con- 
duct in the world. Put the idea to a 
man who has not realized the highest powers of 
his being and he may try to evade the necessity 
of such obligation. Only the fullest realization 
of self can put a man in the position to get the 
correct view of life. As long as a man is defi- 
cient in any stage of self-development just so 
long is he incapable of getting the right view- 
point of life. He will cling to the idea, unless 
he comes to a knowledge of the full content of 
self, that life is only an opportunity for him to 
provide for his own needs and pleasures, and 
the needs and pleasures of his blood and flesh 
successors. When man continues to provide 
unnecessary luxuries for his immediate depend- 
ents, without giving a thought or a deed that 
would assist the needy in securing necessities, 
we may be sure that that man is not yet aware 
of the obligation resting upon all mankind. Like 

85 



86 MAN : A STUDY 

the horse and the mule that man must be driven, 
if he is to do the right thing. Unlike horse and 
mule he may come to a point where the right 
thing may be done because of his own volition. 
Creatures without understanding cannot be ex- 
pected to do the right thing all the time. Be- 
ings with understanding may be expected to do 
what is right all the time, when the understand- 
ing is awakened. Man has a definite obligation 
resting upon him in this life. That obligation 
is based upon the fact that all mankind pro- 
ceeds from a common source. To the Supreme 
Being who gave life to the world all must look 
for the power that enables man to be, to think, 
and to do. 

Two brothers of one earthly father may not 
be congenial to each other. Instead of growing 
up together in peace and concord they grow up 
apart from each other in thought and deed, 
making wider the gulf between them year by 
year. All this because the temperament of one 
differs from the temperament of the other. 
There is no effort made by either brother to 
reconcile the differences that exist. The old 
spirit of selfishness comes in to aid in the family 
separation. One must have his way and desires, 
the other is just as determined to have his way 



ON WHAT RESTS HIS OBLIGATION? 87 

and desires. The result is that the potentially 
united whole, the family, becomes a hard heart- 
ed group of individuals. 

Take one of these unawakened sons and put 
him into juxtaposition with other young men, 
not as congenial as his own brother was even, 
and, human nature is so capricious, you soon find 
him on the best of terms with them. Being 
thrown together in such a way that it was neces- 
sary to get the other men's points of view, there 
comes a time when the other men are admitted 
to friendship and respect, though the possibility 
of such a termination seemed highly improbable 
at the start. 

If one could get the two uncongenial sons to- 
gether after several such experiences on each 
one's part, it ought to be an easy matter to bring 
them together in heart as well as in space. That 
old appeal ought to sound reasonable in their 
ears, namely, that the sons of the same earthly 
father ought to make more allowances for each 
other than they make for the sons of other 
earthly fathers. Having in each the blood of the 
same parents they are more one with each other 
than they can be with any other earthly being. 
The fact that they both came out of the same 
loins ought to make them feel that they would 



88 MAN: A STUDY 

give up even their very life for each other. After 
all this you could tell them that the common 
parent deserves some recognition in such a case. 
Man, when considering self alone, is apt to do 
many things that he would not do, if he took 
into consideration all those human beings who 
are to be affected by his contemplated act. It 
is patent to every man that every other man has, 
in part at least, the same desires, feelings, and 
powers as himself. Action in the world of man 
is often so hasty that man has no time to think 
of the feeling that his acts will cause in the minds 
of others. So when you get the uncongenial 
brothers to look from themselves to the com- 
mon parent, to consider his feelings in the case, 
to allow for his claim, you ought to be nearing 
the end of your work as peacemaker. The time 
should be at hand when, for the sake of all con- 
cerned, the uncongenial ones will live together in 
love and sympathy. 

The obligation upon man to show this same 
love and sympathy to all men, regardless of their 
condition or position in life, rests upon the feel- 
ing that we think must be in the Mind of the 
Being great enough to make man as he is capa- 
ble of being. If the fact that every man is our 
brother, because of a common source of life, be 



ON WHAT RESTS HIS OBLIGATION? 89 

not sufficient to move us to do unto all men as 
we are willing and anxious to do for ourselves, 
then the other thought must be urged in our 
endeavor to secure for every man the love and 
help of every other man. If our earthly fathers 
are grieved and sorrow stricken because of the 
estrangements of their sons, is it unreason- 
able to suppose that He, who caused all cre- 
ated forms to be, and put into them the life 
which we see, is affected sadly by the gulfs that 
yawn between men in this world? Is the Life 
Giver to blame because the untutored savage is 
untutored? Is He to blame for the multitudes 
of people in this fair land of ours who know 
not their own powers, nor the Power that made 
them and us? Ignorant men are ignorant be- 
cause they will to be so, or because intelligent 
men do not will it to be otherwise. As long as 
intelligent men think that a gift of their time 
now and then for the purpose of attending to 
the education of the ignorant is sufficient, just 
so long will the ignorant remain so. As long 
as men with material resources think that an oc- 
casional gift of money makes evident to the 
world their due care for their less favored 
brothers, just so long will the less favored re- 
main so. The intelligent must give themselves 



9 o MAN : A STUDY 

to the work. The men with the material re- 
sources must likewise give themselves. Unless 
the heart of both classes of men is in it, the 
work will never be done. That any time or 
money is given for the purpose of bringing the 
ignorant to a knowledge of things as they are, 
is a cause for thankfulness. It shows that many 
men recognize the obligation that rests upon all 
mankind. The fact that the problem is not at- 
tacked, as many problems of less importance are 
attacked, is a sign that man has not yet yielded 
himself to the will of the Supreme Being. What 
has been done seems to have been the efflux of 
individuals when their own needs or desires have 
been satisfied. 

The fact that all life comes from the same 
source, thus making brothers of all human be- 
ings, is not sufficient to impel man to do his full 
duty to his brother man. If the brother is con- 
genial, the duty may be done. If the fulfilling 
of the duty promises to be at all distasteful, it is 
apt to be left undone. The obligation is re- 
garded and lived up to, if the tax is not too 
great. Thus far and no farther will the ordi- 
nary man go. This attitude is too common in 
the world for any one to deny its presence. 
When a man is found who really wishes to 



ON WHAT RESTS HIS OBLIGATION? 91 

know the highest good it is a comparatively easy 
thing to make him see that such a state of affairs 
is not the state any being, allowing the better na- 
ture to rule, would deliberately plan. It is not 
the plan followed by individuals when serving 
their country as soldiers. In that service a man 
will cast himself to instant death at the bidding 
of a man who stands as his superior in the eyes 
of his country. A man will also give himself to 
death in order that a college or university may 
hang upon its walls a certain football trophy. 
Both of these men may have refused to speak a 
kind word to their mother at no far remote 
date. Not one of these acts are the acts to be 
expected from man in his highest state of intel- 
ligence. 

The obligation that is upon man to treat all 
other men with love and sympathetic considera- 
tion is based finally upon the highly probable 
fact that the One who gave us a common life 
desires us to do so. After trial it is found to be 
the best attitude that man can take toward man. 
It accords with all that is best in man. It seems 
to be the result of the highest intelligence in man. 
It must be potential in every man receiving the 
gift of life. If we may attribute to the Life 
Giver the same powers that man possesses, and 



92 MAN: A STUDY 

He must have known about them or have had 
them, in order to place them in man, then He 
must rejoice, as our highest intelligences rejoice, 
when one man is seen to come to a point where 
he gets a clearer view of human life, and sees it 
as it should be lived by man among men. It 
must be the Supreme Being's aim, as it should 
be the aim of every intelligent man upon earth, 
to make more men, and more men, until the last 
are reached, see and know this life of love and 
good will among men; in order that the sons of 
one Father may be one family, united in the 
great bond of sympathy and love; in order that 
all those, deriving life from the great Life Giv- 
er, may be of service to the common source of 
their life by bringing up to the highest level of 
human life those capable of reaching it, but who 
are held down by self or environment. 



MAN'S TRUE GOAL 



CHAPTER IX 
Man's True Goal 

WHEN man ceases to be man by rea- 
son of the separation of the visible 
body and that which has animated 
the body, there is not found in the 
minds and hearts of those persons to whom the 
man in point was dear, a sadness that has no ray 
of light. This fact can be seen in all records 
that speak of such an event. It is not a tradi- 
tional fact of only nineteen hundred years stand- 
ing, it is a fact of ages upon ages. Man can- 
not live in the world even a short time without 
having this strange fact brought to his mind. 
There is sorrow when the familiar form be- 
comes inanimate, but the sorrow is not a per- 
petual sorrow, it is a sorrow for a night only. 
Even on the day that sees the separation of form 
and its vital part there comes to the eye of those 
to whom the form and life were dear, a look 
that tells of something beside sorrow. 

Almost every other thing we have considered 
in our time together is common only to those 
who have advanced somewhat in the ways open 

95 



96 MAN: A STUDY 

to man. This thing, this consciousness of a look 
ahead when a dear form and its life principle 
are separated, is common to all men. The poor, 
the rich, the ignorant, and the intelligent, when 
standing at the door through which the depart- 
ed life has gone, all have the same thought, the 
same hope. It matters not what each has been 
taught or how much; teaching, or its lack, has 
nothing to do with this idea that lives within us, 
as to its inception. It seems to be a part of the 
original gift of the Life Giver. True it is that 
no man has been found, standing at the brink of 
the opened grave, forced to part forever with 
the loved form, who has not had within him the 
means of quieting his grief. His desire to have 
the form animate again may prevent him from 
allowing the inner solace to do its appointed 
work. He has the idea ; it is as universal as the 
life principle which we reveal to the world when 
we act. It could not be so universal unless it 
were placed in man when man was made a living 
being. It is a hope, felt strongly enough at 
times to seem to be a reality, that somewhere, 
somehow, the living, thinking, acting part of 
man will continue, after it is separated from the 
form to which it has given a use, to be alive, and 
to think, and to act. 



MAN'S TRUE GOAL 97 

There is only one kind of life that would be 
endurable throughout all time. That is the best 
life, the cleanest life, the life dictated by the 
highest that is in man. A life in which the mis- 
understandings of this life would be done away. 
Where justice would be dealt out to those who 
had suffered injustice in this world. And thus 
it is that the separation of the life from the form 
often makes a man who suffers the loss take 
more thought to his own ways than he formerly 
took. There is a feeling which tells him that 
only those who make the life lived agree with 
the highest life possible will merit a revision of 
judgment, the removal of limitations. When 
man is called upon to part with some loved one 
because the time has come for the separation of 
the life and the form, it is a common sight to 
see him go out into the world, and, in a bungling 
sort of way, attempt to do something to show 
a friendly feeling toward equally sorrowing hu- 
manity. At that moment man feels the claim of 
universal brotherhood whether he is an ignorant 
or an educated man. One little drop of human 
kindness at such a time, the acceptance of the 
assistance offered, may be the cause of sending 
out into the world an agent of the right life, a 
man imbued with the spirit that must have been 



98 MAN: A STUDY 

in Him who gave life to all created forms. 

When a man loves anything with all his heart 
and soul he does not wish ever to be separated 
from the object of his love. Have you not 
heard of men who made it a part of their last 
message to human beings in this world that their 
bodies be wrapped in a certain piece of bunting, 
called a flag? This is a case where man makes 
an incident in his earthly life the ruling thing in 
his life. He may have borne arms under that 
Hag. Arms that were made for the quicker sep- 
aration of form and life; that were made for 
the sole purpose of extinguishing the life which 
a Common Life Giver had given to all living 
beings. The bearing and using of such arms 
could not give man cause to be proud, if he con- 
sidered the matter when his highest powers were 
in control of his mind and action. Yet the flag 
that brought back all the memories of heroic 
deeds, the risking of life in order to take life 
from other men, this flag must go with the body 
to the grave. It is well that no one asks to have 
the flag wrapped around the life principle. Its 
flight back to its Giver could not be hailed with 
joy should it appear wearing the badge of the 
enemy of life. The flag is wrapped, as it should 
be, about the perishable part of man, the form 



MAN'S TRUE GOAL 99 

that the Life Giver made for the revealing of 
the life, showing to all who gaze that it too be- 
longs to the fleeting things of time. 

If a man is going to love anybody or thing 
with all his heart and soul, it seems reasonable 
to ask him to bestow such love on the Source of 
his being. If a man's life is a gift from a defi- 
nite Source, that Source is worthy of recognition 
by man. Especially is this so if the life has 
proved itself to be of worth. Man generally, 
always when "in his right mind," regards his 
life as worth a great deal. This being so it be- 
hooves him, before he sets his affections com- 
pletely upon lesser things, to find out all he can 
about the Source of his and every life. It is only 
because men do not think that they become so at- 
tached to transitory things. It is the first im- 
pulse that is obeyed, there is no waiting to thor- 
oughly examine all claims that come before the 
throne of individual man. Those who think, 
who use the powers of man to the limit, come to 
a point where they have to set their affections 
upon the Source of all life or upon themselves. 
There are no other alternatives for the man 
who uses his mind as it should be used. He 
comes to a point where he must worship either 
the creature or the Creator. The larger num- 



ioo MAN: A STUDY 

ber of these thinking men take the Creator for 
the object of worship. It seems to them a fool- 
ish thing to fall down and adore a power that 
equals only the power of man, when a greater 
Power may be sought and known. The greater 
Power rightly deserves the greater considera- 
tion. "We needs must love the highest when 
we see it." 

What would this greater Power have those 
who think of Him and love Him do ? Reason- 
ing from the life of man to the life of Him who 
made man a living being, we would be tempted 
to say that the highest joy the Creator could 
have would be the joy that would come to Him 
when all of the human beings, to whom He had 
given life, came back to Him, revealing the 
highest powers and qualities of which they were 
capable. The man who sends his offspring out 
into the world to make his way in that world is 
filled with great joy when that offspring comes 
back glowing with manly vigor and evident vir- 
tue. The heart of the earthly parent goes up 
when the word comes that the son has played 
the man so successfully that the world of men 
applaud. Contrary feelings come when the off- 
spring has brought disgrace upon the name of 
man. May we attribute such feelings to Him 



MAN'S TRUE GOAL 101 

from whom all life came? If we may, is it not 
man's true goal to go back to the Source of his 
being every bit a man? May we not picture to 
man the Life Giver as a Being so vitally inter- 
ested in man's pilgrimage through this world 
that He will hail with joy the completion of the 
journey when it has been a successful journey? 
May we not picture the Life Giver as a loving 
Father waiting anxiously for the return of each 
son? 

Were man content to aim at reaching this goal 
alone he would not be a whole man. In the 
world of men, to men are entrusted the safety 
and well being of other men. There are guides 
who know ways unknown to ordinary men. To 
these men is given the privilege of conducting 
other men to the goal that they would or should 
reach. If it is a good for any human being to 
strive to go back to the Creator whole in every 
respect, it undoubtedly is a good to be the means 
of bringing back to the Creator a human being 
who knew Him not as the Source of being, or 
knowing Him as such, had not the power alone 
to get back to Him. 

Were an earthly parent aware of the fact 
that two of his sons in a far off country, trying 
to make men of themselves, were assisting one 



102 MAN: A STUDY 

another in the battle, the stronger one always 
helping the weaker one, the knowledge must 
please him. If the coming back to the earthly 
parent depended upon the accomplishment of a 
certain amount of work, or in being a certain 
kind of man, it must please the parent were he 
to know that the one who had fulfilled the re- 
quirements was delaying his home coming in or- 
der to make possible the bringing of his brother 
with him. For the natural father loves all of 
his sons with the same intensity. 

May we attribute the same feeling to the 
Source of life? May we urge men to be whole 
men because of the joy such wholeness will cause 
in Him who made it possible for us to be such 
men? Can man have a higher aim in life than 
this? To be whole, complete in every part, and 
to help other men realize in themselves this 
same wholeness, this same completeness? In 
order that the life principle, returning to Him 
who gave it, may report the attainment of its 
highest possibilities! 



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